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In Sept. 2012, Ken Ilgunas set out to trespass the length of America’s trigger-happy heartland. He set out to trace the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, designed to ferry crude oil from the oilsands south. Through the central planes and prairies he would venture on foot, from Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas, across farms and ranches supposedly bristling with fire arms and steeped in second amendment fervour.

If he worried about a gun-happy culture, he found people loaded with kindness.

Ken Ilgunlas on his trek from Alberta to the Gulf coast of Texas along the path of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

“That was my worry at first. That was the general impression of North America, that it was a no-trespassing continent,” says the 30-year-old author, who is set to publish a book on his journey. “But I was just welcomed with open arms. Within a couple of minutes when they realize you’re a sane human being, a connection forms.”

A knock on a farmer’s door, Ilgunas quickly learned, was almost always his ticket to a camping spot, a canteen refill or a bit of food.

“The thing I came to realize was that there are many things that make a good traveller,” says Ilgunas, whose upcoming book is titled Trespassing Across America.

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“You can have a good pair of legs. You can have good language skills, know how to navigate well, but, I think the greatest asset to travelling is knowing how to take a favour.”

Accepting generosity, Ilgunas says, ignites the connections between travellers and locals that make for the most rewarding parts of any journey.

“It opens up all these new cultural opportunities,” he says.

“And I never felt like I was mooching; rather, I felt like there was this mutual trade. They were giving me a little help and I was giving them stories.”

Sometimes the generosity he encountered was heartbreaking, Ilgunas says.

“In Oklahoma, it’s a pretty impoverished state, people are driving jalopies and a lot of the homes don’t look fit to be lived in,” he says.

“And to have them pull up alongside you in their cars and come out and try to hand you a wad of bills, because they think you’re poor . . . how can you not have your faith in humanity renewed?”

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Ilgunas stresses that he did not seek out church or charitable groups for help on his journey, but relied on the small charities of ordinary people he met on his way.

“It was all very spontaneous . . . . I wasn’t tapped into some sort of online network,” he says. “I was just walking. I was just walking across the continent.”

The nomadic Ilgunas says that, in his time, he has hitchhiked more than 16,000 kilometres throughout the United States and Canada. “And I haven’t had one bad episode with anybody, I’ve had nothing but luck and generosity.”

Ilgunas says there is a widespread impression that life is more dangerous on the road today, and that hitchhiking in particular is a foolhardy travel option.

“But the crime wave isn’t there.

“What’s there now is paranoia.”

“There’s kind of a general impression that people aren’t as kind and open as they used to be, and, from my experiences, I couldn’t disagree more.”

Hitchhiking, Ilgunas says, provided some of the most heartfelt conversations he’s ever had, and, often, the unspoken gratitude of the drivers.

“At first, I thought I was taking from all these people, but, often times, for the driver, it becomes kind of like a therapy session,” he says. They finally have someone to talk to and those are some of the most intimate conversations I’ve ever had. They’d just unload on me.”

For the Keystone journey, Ilgunas did not go completely unprepared. He set up his own supply line, by having dry good packages mailed to post offices he’d pass along the route. He also had cash and credit cards as the 11-month journey cost him some $7,000.

“But I would need help at times. I’d need directions. I’d need water. I’d need a place to camp,” Ilgunas says. “And sometimes I’d be starved for conversation. Sometimes that was the most important thing I was given.”

The Keystone path, Ilgunas says, rarely followed roadways, taking an as-the-crow-flies route from the oilfields to the Gulf. He admits he is not a fan of the proposal, having a pronounced environmentalist philosophy. But he would keep his pipeline opinions to himself during the five month trip, letting those he met and asked for help lead the conversations.

Veteran travel writer Don George says the kindness of strangers has been a constant in his globe-trotting.

“Something always goes wrong when I travel. I have a knack for getting into trouble,” says George, now an editor at large with the National Geographic Traveler. “And somebody always comes out of nowhere to help me out and take care of me. It’s been a remarkable lesson that people around the planet really do care for each other.”

The ready generosity of strangers has been the most important lesson he’s taken from his travels, says George, who edited an anthology called The Kindness of Strangers for Lonely Planet Publications.

“It’s been probably the single greatest revelation I’ve had as a traveller . . . that basically the world is full of kindness,” he says.

“If you get into trouble somewhere and you say to somebody ‘I need help’ . . . wow! the whole village comes out to help you and take care of you and I’ve found that time and time again.

“I think, ‘Can you help me?’ are four of the most powerful words in the world.”

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